- ‘To harmonise the north with the south is more difficult than to fight Austria or to struggle with Rome’ Cavour
The land question
- Less land available for the peasants as the landowners were constantly adding to their estates (Latifundia)
- Peasant families could not feed themselves as they had done before, for they did not have the land on which to graze cattle or grow crops
Law and order
- Government showed lack of understanding of the situation by introducing higher taxation7
- Cost of living rose with the quality of life for the peasants lowering due to higher taxation
- The peasants couldn’t understand the difficult legal systems; also conscription took the young men away from the farms where they were needed.
- 1861, around 25,000 of them took the hills of Naples and Sicily to avoid military service
Humiliation
-Defeats at custozza + Lissa by Austrians
-Realisation of being given Venetia by foreign power
-Inspire nationalists to get Rome
- On 20th July the Italian Navy suffered humiliation at the hands of Austria in the battle of Lisa
- Abandoned hopes of gaining the Trentino
-Peace of Vienna, 3rd October 1866, Austria ceded Venetia to Italy and recognized the new kingdom.
Collins, Italy 1815-1943, Derrick Murphy and Terry Morris
- Only about 25% of the army ever reached the front
- Italian general staff was not notable for military skill and experience
- Persano’s court martial, that the fleet fired 1,450 shells without scoring a major hit on the enemy
- Garibaldi saw Rome an easier target than Naples
- ‘Party of action’ – would be forced to confront the French garrison as well as the small Papal army
- Have to face the army of his own government, who could not permit ‘banditry’ to prejudice their diplomatic relations with France, and could not contemplate the humiliation of acquiring their capital city from the hands of a revolutionary
- Badly mistaken in hoping that his actions might spark off a popular revolt with the Papal territories
The Making of Italy 1796-1866, Denis Mack Smith
-The second battle of Custoza was not in itself a defeat, but it was a check from which Lamarmora’s morale never recovered, and he fell back even though not pursued.
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‘The Austrians have not gained an inch of ground in the affections and good will of the Venetians, and the latter have not yielded an inch in their attachment to Victor Emmanuel and the national course’ Julian Fan, Secretary at the British Embassy at Vienna to Lord John Russell, October 28th 1863
by
tbcwebb (student)
